


Sea Monsters and Squid Ink

by YoursTruly (Lyscey)



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Awkward Flirting, F/M, Flirting, Fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-29
Updated: 2013-08-29
Packaged: 2017-12-25 01:00:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/946780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyscey/pseuds/YoursTruly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes Newt forgets just how tattooed he is. He also forgets that not many other people know how tattooed he is. This is the first time Mako Mori gets a good look at all of Newt's ink. </p><p>Working title. I'm not super fond of it. It may change.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sea Monsters and Squid Ink

Girls like Mako Mori don’t look twice at guys like Newton Geiszler. Except, Mako does. She looks three or four times if she accidentally walks in on him in his undershirt and boxers while couriering messages back and forth for her old man. Though, that’s happened more than once so maybe it’s not accidental anymore. 

At first he barely noticed it. She watched him discretely as he rifled through the disaster zone on the top of his desk for the report she needed, smiling just slightly and meeting his eyes whenever he looked up to apologize for how long he was holding her up. Patient and professional as always. 

That’s what he assumed it was, professionalism, until she came into the lab one day a few steps ahead of a delivery of fresh parts. It was just a category three, nothing all that exciting, but Newt had a theory about chlorine he had designed an experiment for and was bouncing with excitement at the prospect of getting his hands on those lungs (or the kaiju equivalent anyway). Mako gave him an indulgent smile as he signed for all the specimens and barked out orders about what parts belonged where. He really should have been watching them unload things from the cart, but when she smiled at him like that it was hard to take his eyes off of her. Her blue fringe was recently trimmed, hanging in her face and curling just slightly under cheekbones and it made that smile look twice as big. Newt smiled back, forgetting for just a moment about war, science, and the alien creature being carried in pieces around them, divided into glass jars like a side show attraction. Which was a mistake, because it meant he didn’t notice that the two men struggling to carry one of his precious lungs didn’t know where they were going. 

Sharing the load of 300 pounds of kaiju tissue between two people is precarious to begin with, and impossible when one of them trips on a misaligned deck plate. It came crashing down, his special suspension fluid and sea water spreading over the floor. 

“Shit! Get that operating table and some plastic sheeting over here! Help me get it onto the table, it’ll be fine if I get it into the cold storage fast enough.”  
The three of them carefully lifted the lung onto the plastic lined steel table, mindful of the glass shards sticking out of it. Newt cursed a bit more under his breath but as they wheeled it into his butcher-sized freezer he figured the tissue would still react, even if he can’t fill the whole lung with chlorine gas like he wanted. No harm, no foul. 

He looked back over to Mako and felt the resigned expression fall off his face. She wasn’t smiling anymore. She looked a bit green around the edges of her delicate features and he was afraid she may faint. 

“Mako? Are you ok?” he asked, reaching out a hand to catch her if she got dizzy. She shied away from it and he realized he was covered from fingers to clavicles in blue blood and bits of gore. “Oh, Jesus, I’m sorry Mako. Hang on.” 

Newt quickly unbuttoned his shirt and shrugged it off, using it to wipe the blood from his hands before tossing it in the direction of his garbage can, which it didn’t go into. His undershirt was soaked too, and though he was a little weary of offending Mako, he figured she’d be more comfortable if he was less dressed than if he was more bloody, so he took it off and tossed it too. Without thinking more about it he walked straight up to Mako and wrapped his hands around her biceps to steady her. He tried to make eye contact, slightly embarrassed by how little he had to duck his head to look into her eyes, but her gaze was firmly focused on his forearms. 

Sometimes Newt forgets just how tattooed he is. It had been quite some time since he’d been stripped to the waist in front of anyone, even Hermann who he had to share a bathroom with. He was quite aware of it at that moment, though, as Mako’s eyes raked slowly up the brightly colored ink kaiju adorning his arms. Her mouth was hanging open just a little but he was fairly certain she was holding her breath. He followed her eyes as they followed the curves of his elbows, up over his shoulders and onto the traditional fan shapes on his chest. She’d seen his shirt sleeves rolled up before so she knew about the ink, but she’d never seen his full sleeves, and certainly not the way his shoulders, chest, and back were also tattooed in the traditional Japanese full-body style. Shock or disgust he could have been ready for, but what she was looking at him with then was something like reverence and he was completely frozen under it. 

“Miss Mori. Miss Mori? Is there anything else we can do for you, mam?” 

That was it, the spell was broken. Mako made an adorable little startled noise and jumped slightly but recovered quickly. Newt let go of her. “No, sergeant, that will be all. You and your detail are dismissed. Thank you,” she said with considerable authority, despite the dusky blush she was sporting all the way up to her hair line. 

“Thank you, mam.” the man said, and bowed respectfully before turning on his heel and walking away. 

Mako turned back to Newt, but didn’t take her eyes off of her shoes. “I’m sorry about your specimen,” she said, a little smile playing around the corners of her mouth but never quite coming out. 

“It’s no problem. I can still use it. I’m sorry it made you uncomfortable. I had no idea you were squeamish. We can meet in the hallway from now on if you want. So you don’t have to see the parts. If you want,” he managed to get out over a stutter. 

“No, no, I’m fine as long as they’re behind glass. I’ll be fine. Thank you for your concern. “

Her eyes finally met his again and she smiled that close-lipped professional smile, but she was looking up through her lashes and this time he could swear she was flirting with him. He grinned.

“You’re welcome. May I call you Mako-chan?”

Mako’s blush redoubled and she looked away again. “If you like, Newton-san.” With that, she bowed abruptly and headed for the door. Her shoulders were bowed a bit but he thought he saw them shake just a little, like she was giggling, and he couldn’t help but think: Well, that’s interesting.

**Author's Note:**

> Little piece of fluff someone on Tumblr encouraged me to write. For funsies. There will be more I think. It will likely get smutty because this is me we're talking about. I just had to write someone as obsessed with Newt's tats as I am. Don't judge me.


End file.
